Category World News

Dick Schoof, the incoming leader of the Netherlands, discusses the collapse of his coalition and Gaza, Israel, NATO, migration, and more.

As dissatisfaction with his administration grows ahead of May’s local and regional elections, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged his Labour Party to unite against the populist party that is launching a “racist policy” of mass deportation.

Starmer urged party members to concentrate their anger on Reform UK, led by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, rather than his leadership at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool.

“We have to fight Reform because we have to do it,” the president declared. We must defeat them, Starmer told BBC News, so this is no time for navel gazing or introspection. The British prime minister, whose support has declined as a result of policy vevers and a number of errors, said, “We need to be in that fight together.”

According to reports of party members plotting Starmer’s replacement, including Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who spoke to British media about a potential leadership challenge.

According to Rory Challands of Al Jazeera, Liverpool-based journalist Rory Challands said Burnham’s popularity as an MP makes him difficult to run for prime minister. Although it’s not exactly code red for Starmer, the warning signs for vacancy-filled seats and Burnham-created MP positions actually start flashing.

Starmer is also under pressure to increase spending and relax self-imposed fiscal restrictions, which aim to achieve a 2029 balance between daily expenses and tax revenues. Centrists worry that the government will be punished if spending is raised, while leftist party members criticize Starmer for failing to raise living standards as he promised at the previous election.

Starmer criticized Farage’s party, which has its main priorities in restricting immigration, one of the voters’ biggest concerns.

“It is one thing to say that we will deport illegal immigrants, people who don’t have any legal standing.” He responded, “I’m up for that.” “It’s a completely different thing to say that we’re going to approach people who are lawfully here and begin removing them,” remarked one of the commentator.

Pro-Palestine demonstrations atop conference venues

A UN inquiry panel dubbed Starmer’s approach to Israel’s genocide of Gaza a genocide. On Saturday, the day before the start of the governing Labour Party’s annual conference, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in Liverpool.

The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign organized a march in which the demonstrators pleaded with the British government to “end Israel’s genocide, stop starving Gaza, stop arming Israel.”

As they marched through the streets of the northwest English city, some of them yelled, “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Israeli apartheid has to fall.”

Difficulty of protesters sat in their cars on Sunday, waiting for their names to be taken into custody. I oppose genocide. “their signs read,” is what I support.

Before the UK police began their detentions, Al Jazeera’s Challands reported that he had counted 72 demonstrators.

Each of these protesters is awaiting arrest, the statement reads. They are aware of this because they have repeatedly witnessed it, he said.

Challands claimed that the demonstrators were trying to “make a mockery” of the British government’s most recent designation of the direct action group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organization.

In protest of the British government’s actions, it banned the organization earlier this year after some of its activists sprayed two planes and smashed into a Royal Air Force (RAF) base.

Campaigners have been demanding that Israel, which has been accused of abusing Palestinians in Gaza, stop exporting F-35 jet parts.

They want to make peaceful protesters apprehensive by holding numerous arrests on the first day of the Labour Party conference, according to Welsh.

Celebrities urged the British prime minister to claim that Israel is staging a genocide in Gaza on Saturday.

Comedy and acting legend Steve Coogan said, “Keir Starmer says it’s not genocide, it’s genocide,” before the Labour Party conference.

Vote is looming.

If, as some people predict, Labour performs poorly in May’s local and regional elections, the government is required to hold an election in 2029. However, Starmer will be under increased pressure.

In July 2024, Labour ended its 14 years of Conservative rule with a sweeping victory, but Starmer has since struggled to stay in the lead. Only 13 percent of voters are happy with his government, according to a polling company, and 79 percent are unhappy, which is the lowest percentage of any prime minister since the company first began collecting data in 1977.

Starmer stated at the conference on Sunday that he would be judged on three things, including improved living standards, better public services, and whether or not people felt secure inside their homes.

The party’s disarray was further increased by several exits from Starmer’s team over the past few weeks.

Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israel, and according to reports, Hezbollah, the Lebanese organization he led, is now disbanding.

Analysts believe that while a weakened Hezbollah can no longer pose a significant threat to Israel, it can still create chaos and challenge opponents domestically as it tries to find a political footing to preserve its clout.

Long viewed as the strongest nonstate armed actor in the region, Hezbollah found its star waning in the past year, culminating in an international and domestic push for it to disarm entirely.

According to experts, unrestrained pressures on the organization could cause it to launch a retaliation and cause internal conflict that would outweigh regional and international pressures.

As its current leader, Naim Qassem, reiterated on Saturday to a crowd of thousands who had gathered at Nasrallah’s tomb to pay tribute to the assassination, Hezbollah’s rhetoric is still defiant and has promised to reject Lebanese government efforts to disarm it.

“We will never abandon our weapons, nor will we relinquish them”, he said to the crowd, adding that Hezbollah would continue to “confront any project that serves Israel”.

Still no movement

On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah and Israel began conducting trade and fighting in Gaza. This continued until September 2024 when an Israeli military intensification and subsequent invasion killed about 4, 000 people in Lebanon, injured thousands more and displaced hundreds of thousands.

By the time a ceasefire was declared on November 27, Israel was executing a large portion of Hezbollah’s senior military leaders, including Nasrallah, the organization’s secretary-general.

According to diplomatic sources who had knowledge of the ceasefire, the terms of the agreement had been ambiguous, but it was generally accepted that both sides would stop fighting and that Hezbollah would disarm in southern Lebanon and that Israel would withdraw its forces from the south. But soon after, Israel and the United States argued that Hezbollah must disarm entirely.

Hezbollah’s regional and domestic rivals began calling on the organization to give up its weapons as the country’s neighbors began to see its weakening. Many of Hezbollah’s domestic allies jumped ship and endorsed full disarmament as a result of the changing regional winds.

The Lebanese government, under pressure from the US and Israel, announced on September 5 that the Lebanese armed forces have been tasked with forming a plan to disarm Hezbollah.

Israel has continued to violate the ceasefire by bombing southern Lebanon in the interim. Israel is continuing to violate this ceasefire agreement, according to UN peacekeeping force in the south, including air and drone strikes on Lebanese territory.

Despite media speculation that Hezbollah is regrouping in southern Lebanon, particularly in anti-Hezbollah media outlets, it has only claimed one attack since the ceasefire was announced in November.

According to analysts, Hezbollah is no longer a threat to Israel, which would mean that any decision by it to launch attacks in Lebanon would be based on factors other than Hezbollah’s capabilities.

Hezbollah and its supporters contend that the need for resistance is based on Israel’s repeated violations and threats as well as its continued occupation of five Lebanese territories.

“The continued existence of a real threat justifies the maintenance of deterrence and defence capabilities because deterrence is not a one-time event but rather a cumulative process that requires a stable and integrated power structure within a broader political context”, Ali Haidar, a columnist with the pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar, wrote recently.

Before publication, Al Jazeera reached out to Hezbollah for comment.

What does the term “regrouping” mean?

“No military or political military force]will not] regroup after suffering a major defeat as]Hezbollah] did last year”, Michael Young, a Lebanese analyst and writer, said.

“But are they positioned to launch rockets and bomb northern Israel along the border?” No . Are they in a position to fire missiles at towns and cities? No .

What does [regrouping] actually mean?

Lebanese political scientist Imad Salamey told Al Jazeera:” Hezbollah is significantly degraded – leadership attrition,]communications] penetrations and blows to command and control have been real. A smaller, less expensive, and more agile Hezbollah is the only option they have left.

According to Salamey, “Israeli assessments themselves point to both the harm done and Hezbollah’s self-renewal efforts through smuggling/self-production under intense intelligence pressure,” any rebound will likely be tactical rather than structural in the near future.

In early December, the regime of Hezbollah ally Bashar al-Assad was toppled in Syria, another blow to the group, as it cut off a direct land route for weapons and financing to reach the group from Iran.

Analysts claim that Hezbollah has been attempting to use its remaining influence through diplomacy, even sending signals to its long-standing foes like Saudi Arabia.

In a speech on September 19, Qassem stated, “We assure you that the arms of the resistance are pointed at the Israeli enemy, not at Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, or any other place or entity in the world.”

The message to Saudi Arabia, which has previously funded Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon, is part of a shift in the group’s strategy, analysts said.

There is a tinge that they believe they have political acumen, Young said. If they can get more out of the system, they might feel like they don’t need to use force or weapons.

It is also a reflection of the new political reality in Lebanon and the region, where Israel and the US have ascended in power and Iran, Hezbollah’s close ally, has faltered.

Lebanese political analyst Karim Emile Bitar told Al Jazeera that “Hezbollah is starting to realize that it is entrapped.”

Hezbollah had the ability to form or dismantle governments before the war. But President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam were elected in early 2025 despite neither being Hezbollah’s preferred candidate.

Hezbollah either refused to or was unable to halt Salam’s government’s formation. According to analysts, the group desperately needs foreign aid, which the government could provide to aid in rebuilding its devastated neighborhoods caused by Israeli attacks.

But that money has yet to arrive as there is regional and domestic debate over whether the government should receive reconstruction funds before Hezbollah’s disarmament and other banking or political reforms.

Due to the growing support for the Lebanese state, as well as the strain and trauma Hezbollah supporters and members experienced as a result of the war last year and the ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon, according to analysts and diplomats. Hezbollah is still capable of sprinkling tensions, but has avoided fanning any flames.

Hezbollah supporters gathered by Beirut’s waterfront on Thursday to pay tribute to Nasrallah. Supporters projected their late leader’s image onto the Raouche Rocks, defying orders from the prime minister’s office that banned the act.

Supporters of Nasrallah saw the incident as an expression of love for him, while Hezbollah’s opponents argued that the incident was a provocation. Aside from sporadic attempts to block roads that the Lebanese military quickly reopened, the group, which has threatened violence in the past, has largely avoided provocations since the war.

If Hezbollah is pursuing military regrouping, a senior Western diplomat with knowledge of the issue said, it would be more likely in the Bekaa Valley than in the south, where the ceasefire mechanism had been largely effective at supervising Hezbollah’s withdrawal.

However, according to Young, the organization does seem to be changing its political strategy, Young continued, noting that Hezbollah may eventually be looking for some compromises as a result.

He discussed proposals made by Hezbollah MPs Ali Hassan Khalil and Ali Fayyad in their subcommittees about implementing the 1989 Ta’ef Accord, which called for the transition of Lebanon to a non-sectarian system of power.

“Their implicit point is that ‘ If we implement Ta’ef in its entirety, then that can give us a greater role with better representation, and then we can talk about weapons, ‘” Young said.

Hezbollah should leave, right?

Amid the intensifying pressure to disarm Hezbollah, analysts and diplomats fear that if pressed too hard, the group could lash out.

The US has announced a $ 14.2% aid package for Lebanon’s military to aid in its disarmament, and US officials have been making more frequent visits to Lebanon, including those of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, deputy special envoy Morgan Ortagus, and special envoy Tom Barrack.

During his late-August visit, Graham declared, “It’s time for Hezbollah to leave.”

But Lebanon’s military has rejected setting a strict timetable for Hezbollah’s disarmament over fears the tense situation in Lebanon could descend into violence.

And some parts of Lebanon, where the US is seen as using its military to bolster its military, have received poor reception for news of the aid.

“]The Lebanese army] will never serve as a border guard for Israel. Its weapons are not Hezbollah’s weapons, according to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, and its purpose is predetermined.

Diplomats and analysts worry that a conflict between the army and Hezbollah could lead to internal conflict and possible division along confessional lines, as happened in the Lebanese Civil War’s early years.

“]Disarming Hezbollah by force] is the worst possible option, but obviously, this is how the Americans are increasingly pressuring the Lebanese government to resolve this”, Young told Al Jazeera.